Agatha Christie: free speech is a copyright issue
Christie today, literature tomorrow?
With more sensitivity edits, this time to Miss Marple, people are saying these changes will come to historic literature next. I doubt it.
Agatha Christie was already edited before the latest set of changes. Her most famous novel, the one that is routinely rated as the best murder mystery of all time, has been retitled twice, because it was so offensive. No-one thought that would lead to great literature being censored. And while I am against sensitivity edits in general—especially the silent updating of kindle books—I’m fine with the fact that the n-word was removed, especially from books like Christie that young people read. This happened a decade before I was born, by the way.
The recent edits are part of a worrying pattern. But it’s not new. Read about the history of biography. The families of prominent people are always embarrassed by the exploits of their relatives and keep the most interesting material hidden. Virginia Woolf called it the widow problem.
The changes being made to Dahl, Fleming, and Christie are a result of the same problem, only now it is grandchildren not widows. For seventy-five years after an author dies, their relatives have control of the copyright. Without that control, it would be much less of an issue if and when sensitivity edits were made. Someone else would just publish the originals. The phrase that you already see on books—“complete and unabridged”—would start to acquire more market value. As it is, copyright creates an incentive to meddle where none previously existed.
If you want to stop this sort of thing, you’d be better off supporting copyright reform. And while the problem will continue, I’m less worried that “they’ll come for literature next”. The financial incentive simply isn’t there. Out of copyright works are not controlled in the same way.
I wrote about this for the National Review when it happened to Dahl and spoke to Charles C.W. Cooke about it on his podcast.